Tennessee’s top law enforcement officer says ICE ‘knowingly released murderers and rapists’ onto US streets

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials under the Biden-Harris administration “knowingly released murderers and rapists from migrant detention centers onto American streets,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said, disclosing data obtained in a lawsuit.

“Our office will continue to fight to hold the federal government accountable for its disastrous, ongoing failures to enforce immigration laws,” he said in a statement. social media post.

Skrmetti’s office obtained these documents after Gov. Bill Lee first learned in December 2022 that ICE had contacted Nashville officials to coordinate the release of a large number of foreign nationals to the city before the federal public health authority expires in May title 42. 2023. The city and state asked ICE, among other things, for information on how many people were sent, where they came from and what resources were provided to help. They also submitted questions under Freedom of Information Act requests, did not receive the requested information and later filed a lawsuit to get it, Skrmetti said.

Many states defendant over the completion of Title 42, including Tennessee. Florida and Texas have separately filed a lawsuit to stop the Biden-Harris administration’s plan to mass release people illegally crossing the border into the U.S. rather than detain them and process them for removal under federal law, The Center Square reported. Courts ruled in favor of the states, although Title 42 expired with the end of the Covid-19 era state of emergency.

“Records show ICE’s plan to release migrants to the state was thwarted by opposition from Tennessee’s governor and U.S. senators and ultimately halted following successful litigation by the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office and other states,” Skrmetti he said in a statement last week. “The information further reveals that although ICE abandoned its failed plan to mass release prisoners to Tennessee, the agency nonetheless released more than 7,000 prisoners directly from Louisiana facilities, including more than 30 who were assigned ICE’s highest security threat level.”

The 384 pages of documents reveal that ICE’s New Orleans field office has been working extensively with city officials and nonprofits and religious organizations in its region to transport, house and assist illegal border crossers in preparation for mass releases following the end of Title 42.

The documents also list where thousands of single adult foreigners were detained in facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The documents show that they included approximately 7,000 people with criminal records including murder, sexual assault, armed robbery, kidnapping, foreign smuggling, drug trafficking, burglary and fraud.

They are citizens of many countries, including: Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belize, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Russia, Somalia, Syria , Turkey, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

The US Department of State has appointed Cuba and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism; China and Russia are among 20 countries identified as countries of particular concern. Under current law, citizens of these countries are rarely eligible for asylum.

The document shows that people with criminal records were released on parole, placed in handcuffs, released on their own recognizance or released on supervision orders. The documents show that few applied for asylum.

The documents were released nearly two years after ICE-New Orleans made contact with officials in Tennessee and following a recent ICE report that hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens released into the U.S. have criminal histories.

The report found that more than 662,000 criminal aliens were considered for deportation, two-thirds of whom were convicted felons, The Center Square reported. The worst include those convicted or charged with murder (14,914), sexual assault (20,061), assault (105,146), kidnapping (3,372) and commercial sex crimes, including sex trafficking (3,971). .

In a separate database, ICE reported that it arrested more than 387,000 foreign criminals, including violent criminals, between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, The Center Square first reported.

“The federal government’s most important job is to keep dangerous people out of our country, and instead it allows killers and rapists to cross the border illegally and walk freely on our streets,” Skrmetti said. “As urgent work continues in Washington to fix our broken immigration system, my office will continue to fight for transparency and accountability.”